In September 2020 we revived the March 2018 Jovian Chronicles Bundle featuring the Jovian Chronicles SFRPG from Dream Pod 9. In the 23rd Century the Solar System trembles on the brink of war. Earth’s militaristic CEGA forces are ready to recapture the Motherworld’s restive colonies — from the Mercurian Merchant Guild and the zaibatsu corporate states of Venus to the powerful Confederation on the moons of Jupiter. With an exciting, original setting that combines hard science fiction and anime-style action, Jovian Chronicles puts you at the center of the struggle for the Solar Nations.
Jovian Chronicles superficially resembles a standard mecha game. But its vision of a Solar System teeming with life — of O’Neill cylinder colonies, arcologies on terraformed Venus and Mars, and “Trojan State” asteroid settlements in the orbit of Jupiter — is compelling for its scientific authenticity. Sure, pilots wear giant battlesuits out of Gundam and drive giant capital ships a la Macross, but the Solar Nations of the year 2210 appeal to every fan of in-System “solar opera” hard sf.
Originally published in 1992 by IANVS Games as a pair of supplements for R. Talsorian’s Mekton, Jovian Chronicles reappeared in 1997 as a full-fledged game line from Dream Pod 9, publisher of Heavy Gear and Tribe 8. The “White Edition” (named for the cover design) uses the Silhouette Core system seen in Heavy Gear. In 2017 DP9 released Jovian Wars, a fleet-scale tactical miniatures game in the same setting.
This comprehensive bargain-priced revival, featuring the 1997 White Edition of Jovian Chronicles, once again offered everything you need to climb into your exo-armor suit, board an Alexander-class Destroyer, and set out for interplanetary adventure. There were nine titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $67.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:
- Silhouette CORE Deluxe Edition: The Dream Pod 9 universal rules set that also underpins Heavy Gear (previously presented in our April 2017 Heavy Gear Bundle).
- For this revival we added the 1997 First Edition Jovian Chronicles Rulebook. It joined the Jovian Chronicles Player’s Handbook 2E, the complete 258-page rulebook that details the Solar Nations, organizations like SolaPol and ZONet, the pilots and agents of the Jovian Confederation, and daily life in the planetary settlements and Orbitals. (And if you already purchased this offer, either during this revival or in its original March 2018 run, you automatically received the newly added book on your Wizard’s Cabinet download page and in your DriveThruRPG Library.)
- Four vital equipment and vehicle guides: Mechanical Catalog 1 and Catalog 2, Spacer’s Guide, and the Space Equipment Handbook.
- Two Planet Sourcebooks: Earth and CISLunar Space.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with thirteen more titles worth an additional $98.50, including the Jovian Chronicles Companion; four more Planet Sourcebooks (Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter); all three Ships of the Fleet volumes (1: Jovian Confederation, 2: Jovian Confederation, and 3: CEGA) cataloguing spacecraft from the Jovian Confederation and Earth’s government, CEGA; the campaign sourcebook The Chaos Principle; the Gamemaster Handbook & Screen; and The Art of Jovian Chronicles Volume 1, a gorgeous full-color 220-page gallery of cover art, characters, exo-armors, vehicles, spacecraft, and more from the entire Chronicles line. For this revival we added Ships of the Fleet V4 – Venus Fleet — and Volume 2 of The Art of Jovian Chronicles — and all previous purchasers got the new books automatically.
(Note: These .PDFs are image scans of the original 1990s print copies with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) applied. Text is light but readable; the designer credits in some books are blurry.)
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this offer’s pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries daily to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
